Fire Fighting Opp's

[turboplanner]

Not sure if it is a requirement but a lot of the fire aircraft are on ozrunways. 

 

It would certainly help because if a fire flares up close to houses, which the one I was talking about did. I dn't think they would have any thought-space left over for watching out for a happy Jab or Drifter pilot.

 

 

[skippydiesel]

Not sure if it is a requirement but a lot of the fire aircraft are on ozrunways. 

 

Yes - but not all, so do not take OzRunways as gospel.

 

A sensible procedure is to join your CTAF circuit overhead 500ft above the highest circuit altitude, (which could be 1500' agl for fast traffic). This way you don't get mixed up with non-standard circuit joins at low level, which emergency services aircraft are able to legally make.   Happy days,

 

Not absolutely sure but the 500 ft above circuit hight is a recommendation (good manors) not a rule and anyhow the firebombers seem to operate from ground to 3000 ft .

 

Belatedly the authorities have now come out with some direction but in the final analysis it comes down to the pilots common sense because the fire fighting activity is as unpredictable as the fire itself - just look at what happened SW & S of Sydney today..